This is Orson Scott Card’s newest book in the Ender’s Game series. We are fortunate enough to have found a copy in our local Walnut library.
You have to read Ender’s Game to make sense of the later ones in the series. Once again, Ender Wiggin does not disappoint. He is super smart, out-maneuvers everyone, full of compassion, and gives the book a good ending.
My favorite character, besides Ender, is Hyrum Graff. As a colonel who works in the military, he gets his work done by working around the system. He manages to stay a few steps ahead of the military bureaucrats.
A few quotes from the book that I like:
For those who do not believe war is ever justified:
“Violence was what the military existed for – controlled violence, directed against appropriate targets.”
“Pacifism only works with an enemy that can’t bear to do murder against the innocent. How many times are you lucky enough to get an enemy like that?”
For parents:
Ender says, “What I understand now is this: There is no harder job than parenting.”
The rest of his quote I disagree with:
“There is no human relationship with such potential for great achievement and awful destructiveness, and despite all the experts who write about it, no one has the slightest ideas whether any decision will be right or best or even not-horrible for any particular child. It is a job that simply cannot be done right.”
In the context of that quote from Ender to his parents, his parents had to make some hard decisions about Ender. They were often caught between a rock and a hard place. In those cases, no one can judge whether his parents’ decisions were right or best or even not-horrible.
But in a general sense, some decisions tht parents make are clearly not-horrible and some are clearly right. Parenting is a job that cannot be done perfect, but I think it can be done right.